Safety and Wellbeing Capability

AS3745 Planning for Emergencies in Facilities needs to be changed

I was working with a national client to implement consistent general evacuation training. A branch manager refuted the need for ALL his staff to do general evacuation training.  He insisted he only needed one chief warden trained.  His argument was that AS3745 states SHOULD do general evacuation training not MUST. Therefore he believed his staff did not have to do the training.

So it came time to do the drill.  It was a large warehouse with a showroom attached and upstairs offices and about 20 staff scattered throughout the building.

I said to the workshop manager “This is a fire drill, pretend there is a fire over there, what would you do?” He looked at me as if to say what the! Then said “I know! I go to the assembly area and he took off”… well, that had never happened before!

I told the showroom salesperson “this is a drill, there is a “fire” in the maintenance area, what do you do?” She said to me, “well there is no one in the showroom so I go to the assembly area” and she takes off! For real?

So I said the same thing to a warehouse worker.  He says to me “I am just a casual but if you want, I can go to the assembly area”, and he takes off”!

So what was wrong with this situation?
  1. No one alerted anyone else that there was a problem. The people upstairs would have been trapped if there had truly been a fire in the maintenance area
  2. No one closed any doors or swept any areas
  3. No one grabbed the first aid kit
  4. When I did get the Chief Warden to start the evacuation he did not sweep any areas, close any doors or stop more delivery drivers entering the premises.
  5. They could not decide where the assembly area was as most thought it was in the middle of the driveway where emergency services would typically park.

For this reason, regardless of what AS3745 says I believe you MUST do general evacuation training for all staff.  QLD is the only state that says that ALL staff MUST do General Evacuation training every year and every two years they MUST do First Response Evacuation Training.

General Evacuation Training can be done as a face-to-face training course or it can be done online.


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Category: Safety and Wellbeing Capability

Failing to conduct a Risk Assessment could result in no insurance payout!

What if you a computer caught fire in your office and you used a Dry Chemical Powder (DCP) Extinguisher instead of a Carbon Dioxide (C02) extinguisher.  There is no problem with using the DCP extinguisher except if the powder got into other computers. This happened to a company. The staff used a DCP extinguisher on the fire and put it out but the powder got into nine other computers.

Dry chemical powder extinguishers are also known as ABE extinguishers because they are capable of putting out class A (regular solid combustibles such as wood plastic), class B (liquid fuel fires such as gasoline), and class E fires (electrical fires). Using your DCP extinguisher on electronics will destroy your electronics.

How are your electronics destroyed by a DCP?

Dry chemical extinguishers can also be quite corrosive to metals such as aluminium and are also potentially abrasive.
Using the Dry Chemical Powder extinguisher, the powder, being fine like talcum powder got into nine other computers. So, the company put a claim in to replace the ten computers. The insurance companies denied the claim and stated they would only pay for one.

Why was the claim denied?

According to Legal Aid Qld on why insurance claims are denied… the damage was not caused by the disaster. The damage to nine other computers was caused by using the wrong fire extinguisher. Had the staff used a C02 extinguisher then the other computers would not have been damaged.  The insurance company would only pay for the replacement of the one computer that was damaged by fire.

What should they have done?

Had they conducted a full risk assessment then they would have determined that they had the wrong extinguishers, or had they consulted a qualified Fire Safety Adviser they would have been advised to install C02 extinguishers


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Category: Safety and Wellbeing Capability

New guidance: work-related psychological health and safety

new guidance material

Taking preventative action works

Work-related psychological health and safety – A systematic approach to meeting your dutieswill help employers and workers understand and meet their duties concerning psychological health and safety in the workplace.

Dr Peta Miller, Special Adviser for Safe Work Australia, said we know what causes psychological harm in the workplace and that taking preventative action works.

“Our new national guidance material is essential reading for anyone who wants to build a healthy and safe workplace.

“It provides guidance on the causes of work-related psychological harm, advice on how to intervene early, and ideas and strategies for taking preventative action.”

Contact your local WHS regulator for detailed information on how to use the guide in your workplace.

Category: Safety and Wellbeing Capability

Duty of Care

Beven v Brisbane Youth Service Inc [2017] QCA 211 Court of Appeal Sofronoff, Gotterson and McMurdo J.

22 September 2017

Background
Ms Beven was a family support worker for Brisbane Youth Services. The employer provides counselling and other support services to young people who have generally, mental illness, drug addiction, been affected by sexual abuse, and other problems, including legal and homelessness. One such client was ‘T’ who had a history of sexual advances towards workers, but no physical assaults, such that those workers had ceased providing services to her in her home. In fact, two other workers had previously refused to work with T at all. The Plaintiff agreed to work with T. At a meeting held in a public place which was attended by T, the Plaintiff, T’s mother and nephew, as well as departmental officers, T sexually assaulted the Plaintiff by touching her with her foot under the table. The Plaintiff suffered a severe psychiatric reaction to this incident. It was the evidence, that unbeknown to the employer, the Plaintiff had suffered a prejudicial childhood and been the subject of sexual abuse.

Liability
The Trial Judge found, and the Court of Appeal by majority agreed, that the employer had breached its duty of care. It was accepted evidence that T’s behaviour had not improved with the interventions of the employer. The employer, being aware of the risks posed by T, should have immediately discontinued providing services to her and referred her to other services. The employer’s failure to do so was a breach of its duty of care.

The employer argued that it was simply not foreseeable that T would behave in that manner in the circumstances of such a meeting, and that the risk of injury to the Plaintiff was insignificant. The Trial Judge disagreed with the employer’s propositions.

Judgement
In a 2-1 decision the Court of Appeal dismissed the employer’s appeal from the finding of the Trial Judge that the employer breached its duty of care to the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff was awarded $1.6 million as the evidence proved she was unlikely to return to work.

Discussion
This decision places a very strict duty on employers who provide services to high risk clients. Reasonable precautions may extend to declining the provision of services.

 

Category: Safety and Wellbeing Capability

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